Sunday, August 30, 2015

New Wine

Luke 5:27-39

August 30, 2015

When my parents moved from Tennessee
back to Minnesota, they bought a piece of land in Princeton – a small town
north of the Twin Cities – and built a house in a neighborhood that was being
newly developed. The land had a small pond on it. When I say small, I mean
really small. When I say pond, I mean permanent puddle, but pond sounds more
poetic. The first summer they lived there the whole family was gathered. We
were joking about their little body of water. Someone suggested that we name
it, so we started throwing out possibilities. I’m proud to say that my
suggestion of, “On Busse Pond,” seemed to stick.

At first it seemed idyllic to have
this little pond in the backyard. But water that sits too long without any kind
of disturbance becomes stagnant. After a while the only things that live in
stagnant water are insects. While Minnesota may claim the Common Loon as their
state bird, the real state bird should be the mosquito. Mosquitos are
everywhere in the Land of 10,000 Lakes even when the water isn’t stagnant, so
the last thing you want is something that will attract even more of these devil
bugs.

Water needs to be disturbed to
prevent stagnation. I think people need to be disturbed as well. Even though
Jesus doesn’t mention water in this parable about old wineskins and new wine, I
wonder if the necessity of disturbance, troubling the waters, might not be an
underlying theme of this passage. If not the theme, than the implication of
what happens with new wine.

As he did in Matthew’s telling of
this parable that we read last week, Jesus states this parable in response to
questions about fasting. The disciples of John and the Pharisees frequently
fast and pray, but Jesus’ disciples aren’t hungry. They eat and drink. In both
Matthew and Luke, Jesus answers this by using an analogy of a wedding. If the
bridegroom is here, why would you fast? You don’t fast during the wedding
feast, do you? You celebrate. You eat. You drink. You rejoice. The bridegroom
is going to be taken away soon enough, and then you will fast.

He follows up this analogy with this
parable about new and old garments and new wine in old wineskins. In both Luke’s
version of this story and Matthew’s, Jesus is not throwing out the tradition of
fasting. Fasting was an important part of faithfulness. Jesus fasted. I don’t
believe that Jesus was making a case that fasting should cease altogether, but
as theologian and preacher Fred Craddock put it, Jesus was pointing out when
fasting was appropriate and when it wasn’t. When the bridegroom is in the party
hall, you don’t need to fast. But then he ties it to these words about old and
new, something that is worn out and something that is fresh. In no way do I
think Jesus was setting aside the tradition of fasting or abrogating the Law
entirely. I think he was trying to help his questioners understand that this
something new God was doing in their midst, this new wine, would re-frame their
traditions and reshape their expectations. If they could not see this and open
themselves to it accordingly, then a lot of old wineskins were going to burst.

I don’t want to make it sound as
though Jesus was telling them that they just need to move with the times. He
wasn’t saying they should stop whining about the old; new is always better, or
that torn-up old wineskins are the price of the progress. I think Jesus wanted
them to grasp that this new wine would completely upend what they once knew and
understood. He wasn’t slamming the tradition of fasting, or saying that there
was no need for it. Jesus was offering them a way to understand better the
power of this new wine.

If you think about it, everything Jesus
did leading up to this parable was new wine. He called a tax collector to
follow him. That tax collector, whether we call him Matthew or Levi, showed no
hesitation in answering the call. Whatever motives we might want to place on
Levi for responding so quickly are really unimportant. What is important is
that he answered. Not only did Levi answer, he gave a feast, a banquet for
Jesus, and invited all of his tax collector buddies. He filled the house with
tax collectors and sinners, and Jesus, showing the same lack of hesitation as
Levi did in following, took his place among them.

Calling so obvious a sinner, an
outcast from the synagogue, was pouring new wine. Eating with a crowd of these
sinners was pouring new wine. Eating and drinking instead of fasting, because
eating and drinking was the appropriate response, was pouring new wine. Everything
Jesus did and said was new wine. Jesus’ actions and words were unexpected. They
were unprecedented. They were new wine.

I thought when I began this sermon
that I would try and list the new wine that we are about to experience. Just
moving into this new space is an act of new wine. But that is as far as my list
goes. It’s not that I think this move is the only new wine we’ll experience, I
do. But I have no way of mapping out what the new wine will be because I don’t
know what it is yet. None of us do. We can speculate and postulate and predict
till Bossie, Bessie and Suki – those are cows by the way – come home. But none
of us know for sure what shape or form this new wine will take. What we do know
is this, whatever this new wine being poured out on us is, it will be
unexpected. That’s what makes it new wine.

At the end of this parable, Jesus
says one more thing that was not said in Matthew’s version. “And no one after
drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’”

Wait. What?

All this talk about new wine
bursting old wineskins and now Jesus says that the ones who drink the new wine
are going to want the old? I realize that when we’re talking about merlot, chardonnay,
or pinot that the older the wine is, the better. But I thought that this new
wine Jesus spoke of was the superior choice. Why would he add that little
caveat about wanting the old?

Maybe Jesus was teasing or being
ironic or pessimistic about people’s response to new wine. Maybe. Maybe not.
Maybe Jesus said this because he understood that accepting the new wine would
be challenging. Perhaps he understood human nature enough to know that we
prefer what we know, that change challenges us, and that when push comes to
shove, we want the old wine. It seems to me that Jesus, being fully human,
would have understood this. He would have gotten the fact that the transition
from being an old wineskin to a new one would take both an open mind and an open
heart.

Perhaps he also realized this kind
of change was a disturbance. Remember what I said about water that goes undisturbed
becomes stagnant? To mix my metaphors, new wine troubles the waters.

Just as I wondered if I was an old
wineskin, I also wonder if I have become a little like stagnant water. Maybe I’m
more like On Busse Pond than I care to acknowledge. Comfort and ease too
quickly becomes complacency. Perhaps the waters of my soul have gone untroubled
a little too long. Maybe that’s true for all of us. But stagnant water is not
living water.

Jesus pours new wine, Jesus promises
new life, Jesus is living water. I know that this change, leaving our building,
our church home for so many years, is hard and scary and sad. But maybe there
we were merely a pond, stagnating unto death. Maybe here, and wherever we go
from here, will help us not only accept the new wine Jesus offers, but it will
show us the new wine we can be for others. Our waters have been troubled, but
see this water of baptism. This not only symbolizes living water and new life,
it is living water. May we be blessed by this living water so that we can be a
blessing to others. Let us embrace this new wine being poured in our midst, and
then let’s share it, rejoicing, celebrating the new wine we have been given.